For two seasons, the No. 1 choice in April’s NFL Draft has been Andrew Luck’s spot to lose. But he might have thrown it all away.

On Sunday at the Combine, Luck ran the 40-yard dash in 4.67 seconds. That’s less than a tenth of a second off Cam Newton's time a year ago.

Then his vertical leap was measured at 36 inches—an inch higher than Cam—and he pulled off a broad jump just two inches shy of the one by the 2011 top pick.

Uh oh. You know what that means.

Luck is athletic.

He’s doomed.

Surely, the NFL folks in Indianapolis are re-assessing where Luck fits in, and the draft gurus are re-working their mocks. “What … he can run and jump really well? He’s got natural physical abilities? Hmmm – I wonder how his hands are. I wonder if he can handle 15 or 20 carries a game.”

It’s just a matter of time before we hear the magic word … “Wildcat!”

Athleticism, we’ve been told, is wasted at a position like quarterback, so you’ve got to figure he’ll get a look at the “skill” positions now.

There’s another quarterback there in Indy, Robert Griffin III, who is showing off similar “skills.” Very athletic, even more than Luck, which is why he won’t be the first pick.

In their favor, at least, they’re both articulate. Sometimes, that helps.

Not that athleticism automatically rules you out. Brian Billick, the former Super Bowl-winning coach and current TV analyst, reminded reporters of just that over the weekend. At least two other “athletic” players made it to the top recently. In the grandest of NFL traditions, he compared Griffin to both of them.

“When you talk about the Michael Vicks or the Cam Newtons or the athletic quarterbacks,” Billick said, “this is the best-throwing athlete I’ve seen come out in a while. Far better than Michael Vick, in my opinion. Far better than Cam Newton.”

Quarterbacks rarely get drafted first overall; including Newton, there have only been 11 in the last 14 years. So understandably, Vick and Newton are the first that come to mind when a comparison for Griffin is needed. Honestly, with all that athleticism, who can tell those three apart?

That is, if you don’t count how Vick is left-handed and the other two right-handed. And how Newton is two inches taller than Griffin and Vick three inches shorter. And how Newton outweighs Vick by about 40 pounds. And how they had different backgrounds, played in different conferences, in different offenses, and entered the draft at different stages of development.

Otherwise, they’re all alike, almost triplets.

And now, Luck is one of the brothers.

How Luck overcomes this is anyone’s guess. Oh, he might try to convince evaluators that he wasn’t born with these skills, but used his tremendous work ethic, grit and hustle to achieve them. But who’s going to fall for that? It’s a scientific fact that you either come out of the womb able to run, jump and throw, or you come out smart, determined and untalented.

Historically, the NFL has been harsh with college quarterbacks who can run fast and move well and make plays in ways other than in the classic pocket pose. It killed Fran Tarkenton’s chances to stay at the position back in the 1960s and ’70s. Same for Roger Staubach; that Navy education, Heisman Trophy and clear-cut leadership ability weren’t enough to overcome that cursed mobility.

John Elway, Steve Young, Brett Favre … all that God-given skill, held against them. Must have been something mental going on.

That certainly was the red flag with Newton. His college offense was simplified for him, he got away with just running and jumping around, and it was predicted that he’d never be able to master the complexities of NFL quarterbacking. Just not very smart, like JaMarcus Russell, who was also “athletic,” and to whom Newton was routinely compared.

In hindsight, that’s got to be what’s going on with Luck.

Oh, how he and the Stanford coaches fooled us. What seemed like a precision, pro-style offense that emphasized quick thinking and high-level cognitive reasoning … in reality, it had to be the most basic possible scheme, something with a lot of colors and single-digit numbers, so that Luck could handle it without exercising his brain too much.

Just his legs and arm. Come on – the man runs a 4.67! He’s just a Cam clone, right down to having almost the same height, weight and body type. Probably the same “football IQ,” too.

Or lack thereof.

Poor Andrew Luck. Everything was going so well, with that massive body of work supporting the notion that he could handle all the demands of an NFL quarterback.